Pompey

While he was thus engaged in settling the affairs of Sicily, he received a decree of the senate and a letter from Sulla ordering him to sail to Africa and wage war with all his might against Domitius. For Domitius had assembled there a much larger force than that with which Marius, no long time ago,[*](In 87 B.C.) had crossed from Africa into Italy and confounded the Roman state, making himself tyrant instead of exile.

Accordingly, after making all his preparations with great speed, Pompey left Memmius, his sister’s husband, as governor of Sicily, while he himself put out to sea with a hundred and twenty galleys, and eight hundred transports conveying provisions, ammunition, money, and engines of war. No sooner had he landed with part of his ships at Utica,[*](In 81 B.C.) and with part at Carthage, than seven thousand of the enemy deserted and came over to him; and his own army contained six complete legions.

Here, we are told, a ludicrous thing happened to him. Some soldiers, it would seem, stumbled upon a treasure and got considerable amounts of money. When the matter became public, the rest of the army all fancied that the place was full of money which the Carthaginians had hidden away in some time of calamity.

Accordingly, Pompey could do nothing with his soldiers for many days because they were hunting treasures, but he went about laughing at the spectacle of so many myriads of men digging and stirring up the ground At last they grew weary of the search and bade Pompey lead them where he pleased, assuring him that they had been sufficiently punished for their folly.

Domitius now drew up his army against Pompey, with a ravine in front of him which was rough and difficult to cross but a violent storm of wind and rain began in the morning and continued to rage, so that he gave up the idea of fighting that day and ordered a retreat. But Pompey, taking advantage of this opportunity, advanced swiftly to the attack, and crossed the ravine.

The enemy met his attack in a disorderly and tumultuous fashion, not all of them indeed, nor with any uniformity; besides, the wind veered round and drove the rain into their faces. However, the Romans also were troubled by the storm, since they could not see one another clearly, and Pompey himself narrowly escaped death by not being recognized, when a soldier demanded the countersign from him and he gave it rather slowly.

Nevertheless, they routed the enemy with great slaughter (it is said that out of twenty thousand only three thousand escaped), and hailed Pompey as Imperator. And when he said he would not accept the honour as long as the camp of the enemy was intact, but that if they thought him worthy of the appellation, they must first destroy that, his soldiers immediately made an assault upon the ramparts; and Pompey fought without his helmet, for fear of a peril like the one he had just escaped. The camp was soon taken, and Domitius was slain.